Behind the Scenes

Here’s a glimpse beyond the usual postcard
images of Broome. What interests me, as a photographer, is a behind-the-scenes
look at the landscape, the stories and the people that make up the fabric of Broome
and it’s surrounds.

Above: Pindan is the name
given to the characteristic red earth and foliage of the West Kimberley area.
This was shot in between Quondong and Barred Creek, north of Broome.

Influenced by aerial
photography, this is a close-up of hermit crab tracks taken at James Price
Point at the site of the proposed gas hub 40 kms north of Broome.

A storm rolls in over
Roebuck Plains during the 2015 wet season. Water from this area drains into
Roebuck Bay providing fresh water and nutrition for the prawns, crabs and fish.

A solitary mangrove tree on a spring tide
looks west towards Roebuck Bay. A spring tide exposes roughly 190 km2 of
mudflats, about half the size of the total area of the bay. These mudflats are recognised
as some of the most productive in the world in an area that has just been
designated as 78,800ha
marine park.

A flock of pelicans
fly south over Roebuck Bay on a low tide.

A local Broome
resident fishes in the mangroves near Streeter’s Jetty in Chinatown, Broome, hoping
to land some salmon on the huge spring tide.

Born in Broome, spending much of his life
working at pastoral stations near Derby, Frank Ozies identifies himself as a Djugun
man and has lived with his family in Broome since the 1970s.

Yisah, whose father was buried on this day,
told me, ‘For Kimberley men you truly know you are a man when you are no longer
watching your Dads ‘n’ Uncles bury a relative but it is you shoveling the dirt.
It’s an honorable act … the last thing you can do to show love for that
person.’

A rider lowers himself onto a bull. As a
first timer to a rodeo, I managed to slip into the yards in 2013 and spent hours behind-the-scenes capturing the people that make this event.

Taken on my first
Australia day while on a working holiday from the UK . I was taken in by the humour and how,
for me, it was a quintessentially ‘Australian’ shot. It was a little while later that I learnt how controversial and
dividing the day can be for Australians.